The Courage to Live

The first month of the year and already it has been an emotional rollercoaster. On a global basis, the second wave of Covid-19 seems to have risen mercilessly. In the United States, violent demonstrations at the capitol resulted in five deaths and a complete assault on democracy. And amidst all of this, a good friend last week lost his father. I feel completely drained and even giving myself the permission to slow down and take a breather has been challenging.

Yesterday evening as I uploaded this beautiful panorama from a trip to Banff, Canada I was originally going to write about exploring the spectacular province of Alberta. At this particular moment, I really am not feeling it. I absolutely will do a guide in the near future. However, in keeping with my promise to always be authentic to myself I'm going to take this opportunity to share my thoughts about life/death.

I'm not actually afraid of death insomuch as I'm afraid of not living. I'm afraid of going through the motions of life in a manner that is expected according to society. I'm afraid of someone else making decisions for me and me not even recognizing it until so much time and opportunities have passed that I then exist in regret. I'm afraid of not having the courage to take chances.

The beauty of life though is that there are endless permutations of possibilities and numerous routes to the same destination. Detours and direction changes need not be errors in judgements but perhaps the "scenic route" to arrive. In anycase, don't we all determine our destination? So if we don't arrive at the "right" place, who knows? More importantly, who cares? I recall as part of my roadtrip I had put on my list a particular restaurant that had rave reviews on Yelp, but due to inclement weather I ended up at a homey looking cabin like restaurant at the edge of a river in the middle of nowhere. The food was average, but I remember having a lovely conversation with the host. How he was so proud of his eldest daughter having started university a few months ago. How he missed family dinners serving comfort food grown on the farm and wondered if his daughter was surviving on pizza. I pointed out to my host that pizza can encompass all four food groups. Just saying!

I suppose at the core of my love for traveling is the push that it gives me to be courageous, take chances, and recognize that I can write my own script. I can continually edit. And although I can't determine the end of my story with perfect certainty I can certainly do everything to ensure that it was a beautiful journey. Scripted and sometimes not so much.